Report: Prostitute working for 'Monroe madam' had sex with John Edwards in 2007

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By NewsCore

recordonline.com

By NewsCore

Posted Mar. 22, 2012 at 2:44 PM
Updated Mar 22, 2012 at 2:47 PM

By NewsCore

Posted Mar. 22, 2012 at 2:44 PM
Updated Mar 22, 2012 at 2:47 PM

» Social News

NEW YORK -- A prostitute working for alleged "Monroe madam" Anna Gristina told investigators she was paid to have sex with former Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards while he was on a fund-raising visit to New York, local news website DNAinfo reported Thursday.

The prostitute alleged that she slept with Edwards at an Upper East Side hotel in 2007 and that it was arranged through an Edwards aide with the assistance of a New Yorker familiar with Gristina's network, the report said.

An attorney for Edwards issued a statement denying the allegations Thursday and asked DNAinfo to retract the story.

"Mr. Edwards categorically denies that he was involved with any prostitute or service. These allegations are false, defamatory, and he puts those who would publish or repeat them on notice that they acting with actual malice by reporting or repeating them," Allison Van Laningham said in a statement obtained by Politico.

The woman revealed the incident during a "detailed, firsthand account" given to New York investigators looking into Gristina's operation in 2008. Gristina and her husband, Sullivan County native Kelvin Gorr, live in Monroe with her four children and run a rescue operation for pigs and dogs.

Though officials at the Manhattan District Attorney's office found the unnamed prostitute a credible source at the time, they chose not to notify federal investigators about her allegations because the issue was deemed to be a "low-level local infraction," according to sources cited by DNAInfo.

They were also said to be "shocked" that Edwards would have been involved in such a dalliance, as at the time he was considered to be an all-American kind of guy. No charges were ever filed.

Edwards is the first high-profile figure to be linked to Gristina's ring.

DNAinfo was the first news outlet to report details of the now-infamous case earlier this month, a scandal that has titillated New York's tabloids ever since. Thursday's revelations come in writer Murray Weiss' "On the Inside" column.